NEW BEDFORD — City Hall has been slowly eating up spaces in the municipal parking lot on Sixth Street, taking spots from the public and reserving them for department heads — including the city's chief financial officer, a position currently held by nobody.

Since the city purchased the former Compass Bank lot in 2002 and then-Mayor Frederick M. Kalisz Jr. announced it would be split evenly between the public and city employees, subsequent mayors have seized an additional six places, leaving just six metered spaces and two handicapped spots for the public.

A total of 20 spots in the 28-car lot are now reserved for City Hall officials, including four for the mayor's office, two for city councilors and one each for the city auditor, solicitor, planner, environmental planner and clerk.

"I drove in and I realized that everything had a sign," said Astrid Kitchen, 40, of Fairhaven, who works in New Bedford and said she had noticed the shifting demographics a few years ago.

It is often "a struggle" to find a space downtown, she added.

"They took a lot of these spots away for politicians," she said. "It was nice to have all the spots available to the public."

The city purchased the lot, located on South Sixth Street between William Street and Mechanics Lane, in 2002 for $158,041, according to City Assessor Peter Barney.

The administration of then-Mayor Scott Lang took a number of spaces for convenience but also made two free 15-minute parking spaces available directly in front of City Hall, an area previously reserved for the mayor, he said.

Lang declined to comment, saying the newspaper should focus on "key issues."

Under the Mitchell administration, the city has reserved an additional space for personnel director Angela Natho and converted one of the existing Inspectional Services spots for the CFO, Mayor Jon Mitchell said. He said he does not know who currently uses the space.

"Really? Believe it or not, I don't monitor parking spaces," he said.

The lot is convenient for employees whose job takes them in and out during the day, such as the city's inspectors or the MIS department, which deals frequently with the school district, Barney said.

"You want to be able to go out and grab the car and go," he said. "I don't think it's a big deal. It does, in the end, make things more efficient."

Owners of businesses downtown — for whom the "parking situation" is already a sore point — said city employees should park in municipal garages and leave spaces open to the public.

"People that are working in the city, people like me, they should park in the parking garage," said Pepe Konstantopulos, owner of Cameo Salon on William Street and an outspoken opponent of the mayor's plan to convert Custom House Square from a parking lot into a park.

Anthony Thomas, 53, of New Bedford, who was downtown Friday doing business at City Hall, said he had never parked in the lot because he thought all of the spaces went to city employees. Still, he said, he didn't find parking to be a problem.

"You might have to circle the block once or twice," he said. "Usually you can find something."